


Family Curses

by Phoenix_Writes



Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Curses, Gen, Idiots in Love, Janus is a Dragon, Kinda, Let Virgil Say Fuck, Magic, Polyamory, Protective Anxiety | Virgil Sanders, Rebirth, Temporary Character Death, Trans Male Anxiety | Virgil Sanders, Virgil is not a damsel in distress, but this can be read romantically, can you see where this is going, fairytales - Freeform, kind of queerplatonic relationships, princey is a literal prince, the boys being magical and domestic, this got away from me a little bit I hope you like it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-01
Updated: 2020-06-01
Packaged: 2021-03-02 19:42:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,668
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24412246
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Phoenix_Writes/pseuds/Phoenix_Writes
Summary: "What the fuck do you think you're doing?"Virgil stood, panting, between the shocked prince and the wounded dragon. Janus's blood dripped from the prince's sword."... rescuing you?""Why don't you fuck back off to whatever kingdom you came from? I don't need saving," Virgil spat.--In which Virgil is a witch, Logan is a wizard, and Janus is a dragon. They're all in a tower, a prince shows up, and things just go downhill from there.
Relationships: Anxiety | Virgil Sanders/Deceit | Janus Sanders, Anxiety | Virgil Sanders/Logic | Logan Sanders
Comments: 6
Kudos: 171





	Family Curses

**Author's Note:**

> This oneshot consumed my weekend. It just never felt done.  
> Also, if there are tags I should add to this, please let me know. I'm usually pretty good at tagging but I really didn't know how to tag this, so....  
> Anyway, enjoy!

_Once upon a time..._

Janus was on the ground, blood of molten black soaking the earth. Spring wind rustled the trees, and the grass bowed down in silvery waves as Virgil ran to him. Sunlight flooded the clearing. The day was deceptively beautiful. 

Reaching the dragon's side, Virgil shoved the prince standing over him with all his might. 

"What the fuck do you think you're doing?" 

Virgil stood, panting, between the shocked prince and the wounded dragon. Janus's blood dripped from the prince's sword. 

"... Rescuing you?"

"Why don't you fuck back off to whatever kingdom you came from? I don't need saving," Virgil spat. 

\--

Virgil had gone to the tower at fifteen, in the only gown his parents could spare. The Wizard, who at that time was barely seventeen and still mourning his mother, had met them in the door and Virgil's parents had gone no further. He explained that the witch had died, and left her son to collect what she was owed, and Virgil's parents left without question. 

"I'm Logan," said the Wizard, offering a hand for Virgil to shake. "And I suspect that your name isn't actually Annabelle." 

"It's Virgil," said Virgil softly, keeping his hands clasped tightly together. 

"Well, Virgil, good thing I've got some of my old clothes to fit you. It can't be fun to wear a gown like that every day." 

Up at the top of the tower, Logan gave him an armful of boy's clothes and told him to keep what he liked. 

"I can magic the rest into something else," he said, waving a hand. 

"Oh. Okay," said Virgil, peering around the pile so he could watch Logan smile softly. 

Then Logan showed him around the tower. Virgil liked the bedrooms, with their wide windows and many kaleidoscopic quilts, and the library, which was overflowing with books and organized only in the loosest sense of the word. However, Virgil's favorite was the lab, with its many neat shelves and a table cluttered with wizardly things. 

They ate together that afternoon, in the kitchen on the ground floor. Virgil watched Logan cook with fascination, and when he offered to show Virgil how to make rabbit stew and bake potatoes in the coals, Virgil gladly accepted. 

Virgil slept that night in a bedroom of his own. The little room had aired out with a snap of Logan's fingers, and Virgil decided that he liked the Wizard and his gray stone tower in the woods. 

As he grew older, Virgil learned how to brew the spells that Logan sold for pennies in the valley markets. He also learned to notice how Logan was meticulous and methodical and started to smell like ozone when he got nervous, and how Logan liked honey better than maple in his tea. 

One summer, when Virgil was eighteen and Logan was twenty, Logan gave him a brown paper package after dinner. It was haphazardly wrapped, tied too tightly with gardening twine, and it was very special indeed. It was Logan's mother's grimoire. She'd left it to Logan when she died, though he'd been unable to use the spells she'd spent her life working on. His magic didn't suit them at all. 

"I thought you should have it," Logan said, smile playing nervously around the corners of his mouth. "You're much more like her than I ever was." 

"Thanks," said Virgil, turning it over. He studied it all that night and into the morning, and he went to do his chores with a spell at the tip of his tongue. 

One day, when Virgil was nineteen and Logan was twenty one, someone new came stumbling into their little clearing in the woods. 

Virgil was working in the garden, back turned to the edge of the woods, but he heard the approaching footsteps from some distance. A young man, dressed in a fine cloak and dark clothes, was just at the edge of the yard. His face glittered in the sunlight. 

"Hello," he called, wading through the tall, yellow grass. He had both hands out, as though skimming the surface, even though the grass barely cleared his knees. 

Virgil stood, brushing the soil from his hands. When the stranger noticed him, Virgil saw a broad smile split his glittering face. 

There was really only one reason that someone would come to the tower in the woods. Especially when that someone had golden scales creeping over half his face. 

Unfortunately, Logan was still in the lab, brewing something for a farmer two villages down, and Virgil knew better than to interrupt magic halfway through the working. 

"If you want the Wizard, I'm afraid he's busy right now," Virgil said, offering a smile in return. 

The young man stopped, just a stone's throw from the garden wall. 

"I can wait," said the young man. "I was wondering if he could..."

Virgil waited. Half the time, people came to Logan with strange requests. There were pages of case notes in Logan's spellbook, detailing requests and deals that were beyond strange. Magic, and those with magical ability, seemed to attract the unusual. 

The young man tugged on the edge of his cloak. "I was wondering if he could break a curse for me." 

Virgil smiled at him again, hoping that it came across as reassuring. "Oh, so that's what's going on with your, uh, scales." 

"Yeah, I-" the young man cut himself off, glancing down at the gently waving grass. 

"Well, I can take a look." Virgil stepped over the wall. "I'm no expert, but I can definitely get a sense of what's going on." 

"That would be great," he said.

Virgil took a step closer, reaching out with one hand. He stopped a good six inches away from the young man's chest. "Do you mind if I-"

"Go ahead," said the young man. Virgil noticed suddenly that he was taller than the glittering boy, by more than just a few inches. 

Something warm filtered through him. The same feeling that Logan's cheeky smile sparked, though gentler. 

Virgil ignored it. He laid his hand on the young man's chest, reaching out for the magic that was woven into him. 

The young man shifted, uncomfortable with the quiet. "I've tried everything I can think of, but-" 

"- nothing slows it down," Virgil finished. 

The young man nodded. 

Virgil pulled his hand away. There was something very odd about this young man's curse, something steady and solid as opposed to the elusive nature of the magic Virgil was used to. 

"I'm Virgil," he said. "I hope you're willing to stay a while." 

"I am," said the young man. 

He followed Virgil into the tower, and accepted something to eat with another glittering smile. He told Virgil that his name was Janus, he was the son of some nobleman that Virgil had never heard of, and he'd spent four years looking for someone who could break his curse. 

Logan came down from the lab smelling of herbs and the peculiar zing of raw magic. Virgil did a little explaining, and Janus did the rest, and finally Logan sat him down right there in the kitchen to take a look. Right after Virgil returned with some parchment and the magic quill for notes, of course. 

"Oh, this one's baked in deep." Logan adjusted his spectacles, taking notes in his journal with one hand and tracing the other in some indecipherable pattern on Janus's chest. "Probably familial, though how anyone staved it off long enough to have children is beyond me." 

Janus laughed. Virgil wasn't sure if he actually found it funny, or if he was deflecting, but something was just a little off about how open and good-humored Janus seemed. 

"If you don't mind, I'd like to observe its progress for a while. Observation may assist in finding a solution." Logan turned fully to his notes. He wrote in such a complex cypher that even Virgil, who could decode plenty of Logan's notes already, had no idea what he was writing. 

So Janus claimed one of the bedrooms, and none of them had much trouble adjusting to him. He liked helping in the kitchen, and sang while he worked at any task too quiet for his liking. Month by month, the scales spread across most of his body. His voice turned from silky bass to threadbare and scratching. His eyes turned dark and catlike. 

Logan and Virgil were helpless to stop it. When they found Janus, one morning six months to the day that he'd walked out of the woods, he'd lost all his hair and ached in every muscle and joint. 

Three weeks later, a tail snaked from the base of his spine. A month after that, his fingernails turned black as ebony and wickedly sharp. Janus transformed by inches, until every last piece of him was replaced by something inhuman. Leathery wings sprouted from his back, shimmering skin stretched between splinters of bone. 

By the time a year went by, Janus had turned completely into a small, lithe dragon of black and gold. 

Still, Logan and Virgil searched for a way to break the curse. It had come from Janus's seven times great grandfather, and found purchase on him for no reason in particular. The worst his family had gotten was a scattering of scales or frightening eyes. Janus was the first in seven generations to turn completely. 

He was still small enough to fit inside the tower, so that was where he stayed. Neither Virgil nor Logan had the heart to send him away. Even if he was scaring the customers away, he'd become an inextricable part of their little family. 

Then the prince came. He rode a white horse and his grin was sharp as a knife, and he lured Janus from the tower on market day, when Logan and Virgil were miles away in the valley. By the time they made it back, Janus was on the ground, still but for the restless wind that fluttered his wings. 

When Virgil spotted them from the road, he dropped everything and ran. He saw Janus, blood soaking the earth, and the prince standing over him like a murderer with a bloodied sword and a smile on his face. 

\--

"I don't need saving," Virgil spat. 

"But I -" 

"I don't care what you heard. There's no princess here, and there never has been, so you can _fuck right off."_

Virgil felt more than saw Logan drop to the ground beside Janus. Logan would take care of him. Logan would keep him safe. 

Virgil opened his mouth to say something more, but a groan and an ugly squelch sounded from behind him. He whirled, gaze landing on where Janus's body was melting into something as black and thick as tar. 

"No!" He dropped to the ground beside Janus, certain of nothing except that Janus couldn't leave him like this. "No no no no no! You can't do this to me, you bastard!" 

Tears ran silently down Logan's face, but he jut kept trying to salvage what he could of Janus's body. 

"You can't do this to us," Virgil wept, up to his wrists in the black sludge. 

Janus was gone. After four years of friendship, of scathingly sarcastic remarks and companionable silences, after four years of magic and madness and racing to save him, their first friend since each other, Virgil and Logan had lost him. 

Rage seethed inside Virgil's chest, toxic and red-hot. He rose to his feet, trembling, hands blacker than a starless midnight.

"You are going to regret this," he said venomously. 

Before the prince could move, Virgil twisted his hands around a spell and sent it skimming through the air. When the prince opened his mouth to protest, the spell jumped down his throat, glowing right through his flesh. The structure of the prince's throat became visible, then his ribs. Virgil could see his heart thrumming in his chest. 

Logan was sobbing then, thick wet gasps of breath as he tried to hold on to what was left of Janus, and it just made Virgil angrier. 

The threads of magic wrapped tightly around his fingers, and with them Virgil tugged on the spell lodged inside the prince. It, too, was a curse. Even though Virgil had never cast one, had never even studied them aside from Janus, it came as easily to him as breathing. 

The prince began to blur. He split into two indistinct shapes, as similar as a man is to his shadow. 

"Virgil," Logan said, voice hoarse and wet with tears. 

Virgil hissed. If he stopped, the curse wouldn't take, and he couldn't have that. He was going to teach that self-righteous prince a lesson. 

"Virgil, stop." Logan grabbed one of his hands, both of them slippery with Janus's blood. 

Shaking his head, Virgil tugged harder on the magic, though he didn't pull his hand away from Logan. 

"Look," Logan said. 

Keeping the curse gripped tightly in his hand, Virgil let Logan pull him to his knees. One of his hands was still on Janus. The last of the black sludge was seeping into the dirt, showing the shape lying covered in sticky black blood. It breathed shallow breaths. 

"... Janus?" Virgil's voice was raw. He was cold from the tips of his fingers to the soles of his feet, and he couldn't stop how badly his body shook. It was lucky that he was already on his knees. 

The shape shifted, groaning. 

Forgetting the prince and Logan alike, Virgil put both hands out to steady him. 

"I'll take care of the prince," said Logan, and he stood, but Virgil barely noticed. 

"Janus, _Janus,_ oh my god, you're okay, you're okay, you're okay-"

Janus, fully human once again, sat up. He leaned heavily on Virgil, gripping his arms and dripping thick black sludge all over Virgil's trousers, but he smiled white and glittering. 

"Can I get a bath?" 

The tears that Virgil had been trying to hold at bay spilled over, and he was crying. 

"Yeah," he said thickly. "Yeah, of course." 

"Great." Janus grinned, his green eyes and his mouth the only parts of him that were visible under the sludge. "It's not like I need one, or anything." 

Virgil laughed weakly. With tears still running down his face, he leaned his forehead on Janus's chest. 

"I'm sorry," he said. "I'm sorry, I-"

"Oh, it wasn't that bad." Janus rubbed his thumbs in comforting circles on Virgil's biceps. "Only the first hit or two really hurt. It was smooth sailing after he got me in the throat." 

With one more deep breath, Virgil sat up and smiled a watery smile. 

"Come on," he said. "Let's get you cleaned up." 

He helped Janus stand on his unsteady feet, kept an arm around his shoulders, and walked him slowly towards the tower. 

"Laundry is going to be a bitch," Virgil said, opening the door with one hand. 

"At least you don't have to worry about getting it out of _my_ clothes," Janus said. Virgil could all but hear his cheeky grin. 

"... hmm," he said, turning red and unsure how else to respond. 

"I know, it makes _no_ sense. Why would I be naked now if I wasn't wearing clothes as a dragon, hmm?"

"Okay, yeah." Virgil rolled his eyes. "It does kind of make sense."

When he'd filled up the tub in the washroom and settled Janus into it, Virgil couldn't bring himself to let go of Janus's hand. Not when it felt like he could vanish again in an instant. 

Just when Virgil was about to force himself to let go, Janus looked up at him.

"Stay?" 

"Of course," Virgil said, relieved. "You're stuck with me now." 

"I wouldn't have it any other way." 

Virgil gave Janus a bath as best he could. The sludge was evidently water soluble, but it was thicker than glue and twice as sticky. It took seventeen rinses before Virgil could see Janus's skin at all. 

As Virgil worked soap into Janus's hair, he caught Janus playing nervously with his fingers. 

"Something wrong? Other than that asshole prince, of course," he asked. 

Janus took a deep breath. 

"I love you, you know," he said. 

Virgil's hands stilled. 

"I'd been meaning to tell you. For a while. I guess... I guess dying was finally what made me realize that I'd better say something." He looked down, taking another shaky breath. "Because if I don't do it now, I might not ever get the chance." 

Janus's tone wasn't a joking one. 

"I love you too," Virgil said. "I've loved you for a long time, you dumb lizard." 

Janus laughed, though he sounded wrung out. 

Something hung in the air between them, then. Something more than their overdue confessions and the cooling bath. It was tension that neither of them could cut, some mutual secret that dampened their relief. 

With the gentlest soap he could find, Virgil worked the last of the sludge off of Janus's body. The water turned black long before they were done. 

Logan knocked as Virgil was rinsing the last of the soap off of Janus. 

"Just a minute," he called, offering a hand to help Janus out of the tub. 

Gently, Virgil wrapped Janus in an enormous towel. He offered Logan a smile, and he nodded, waving them up the stairs. 

Virgil turned his attention back to Janus. "Do you need help getting up the stairs, or...?"

"... I might," Janus hedged. 

"Alright then," Virgil said amiably. "Your room, so you can get into something dry?"

"Yeah," Janus sighed. Evidently, he had given up embarrassment in favor of abject exhaustion. 

Virgil did his best, but it was all he could do to make sure Janus had trousers on before he fell asleep on top of the quilt in his room. He'd curled up like a child, hands tucked under his chin, and seemed peaceful enough. 

Loath to leave, Virgil spent a minute watching Janus. He'd nearly lost him, before ever getting to really love him, and that scared him more than anything. 

He leaned on the door frame. There was a curious pattern of freckles on Janus's face, almost like the scales he'd had years ago, when he'd first come out of the woods. Other than that, he was fully human. No glittering scales, no catlike eyes, no snake tail curling around his legs. He was just Janus. Human. 

Finally, Virgil left in search of Logan. 

He found him in the washroom, scrubbing the black sludge off his hands and arms. 

"How is he doing?" Logan didn't look up when Virgil joined him at the basin. 

"He's exhausted, and understandably so," Virgil replied. "Do you have any idea why he didn't just... you know, die?"

Logan shrugged. "It's possible that his case was similar to the Lindwyrm from some decades ago. Did you hear about that?"

"Refresh my memory?"

Logan adjusted his spectacles with a soapy hand, but Virgil could see the happy gleam in his eye no matter how he tried to disguise it. Logan loved weird curses and magical mysteries. Virgil, for his part, loved indulging Logan's interest. 

"Well, some decades ago, in the kingdom of Rosia, I believe, the crown prince was born as a Lindwyrm rather than a human. When his younger sister received a proposal, he demanded to be married first. As the elder, I suppose." Logan rinsed his hands off, and then poured the water for Virgil. "When a willing bride was found, she was instructed by one of us, a green witch, I suspect, to wear as many shifts as she physically could. On her wedding night, every time she removed a shift, she demanded at the Lindwyrm do the same." 

Virgil dried his hands, then passed Logan the cloth. 

"By the time she had removed the last one, the Lindwyrm was one of two things, depending on the version. Either he was a young man again, or she had a few extra steps of whipping and bathing him in lye before he became a young man again." Logan held the door open, and Virgil followed him towards the kitchen. "I personally suspect the latter, but the former makes a nicer story." 

Virgil hummed. "That does sound similar. Do you think they were both familial curses?" 

"I don't know," Logan said. "It's possible that any connection is circumstantial, but it's an interesting parallel." 

Virgil collected the dinner things, piled them on the table, and started peeling potatoes with a paring knife. 

"That's true," he said. "Although I don't think we should be studying Janus anymore."

"You're right." Logan crouched to build up the hearth. "The curse is broken, and he's more family than client at this point." 

Virgil looked at him over the potatoes. "It's been that way for a while, Logan." 

"I know." Logan's face turned soft. Picking up the peeled potatoes, he cut them and dropped the pieces into a bowl. "It just took me a while to notice, I suppose." 

Finished with the potatoes, Virgil started on an onion. "You're awful, Logan." 

When that was chopped as well, Virgil dropped it into the pot with a small scoop of butter, and hung the pot over the fire. 

Logan grinned at him cheekily. "Am I?"

"Absolutely." Virgil stood, and kissed Logan on the cheek as he reached for the potatoes. "Do the carrots next, okay?"

"As you wish," Logan said. 

Janus woke up in time for dinner that night, and they all ate together in the kitchen. Janus teased Virgil about the sludge still stuck in his hair, and Virgil flipped him off. Logan asked too many questions, but they were all answered willingly. It was the first good night they'd had in a long time. Maybe the first since Janus had come to the tower. 

They stayed up laughing late into the night. Come morning, they would grumble over chores and cleanup, but it was worth it for that first good night. 

Together, in the gray stone tower in the woods, they lived. 

_Happily ever after_

**Author's Note:**

> I did my best with this one. What do you know? I always do my best.  
> Yes, that was a Princess Bride reference. Not sorry.  
> Have any comments, questions, concerns, or small furry animals? Comment!! I love them and each one makes me happier than Patton in a cat onesie! 
> 
> Stay safe everyone! 
> 
> \- Phoenix


End file.
